JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – The last time state lawmakers tried to add references to Alaska Natives and a message of unity to the official state song, it was divisive and failed. That was 2002.

Eight years later, supporters of adding a second verse to “Alaska’s Flag” believe the state’s indigenous people will finally get recognition.

“There’s a different mentality now,” state Sen. Albert Kookesh, a Tlingit and leader in the Alaska Federation of Natives, said Thursday.

A bill to officially add the verse is working through committees. The verse references Benny Benson, the Native boy who in 1927 designed the territorial flag that eventually became the state flag.

The first attempt to include the verse was in 1987, shortly after it was written by the late poet laureate Carol Beery Davis, a friend of the original song’s author and composer. The verse is widely known, taught and sung as part of the song; the Alaska Youth Choir sang it during the Legislature’s opening session ceremonies earlier this month.

Some of Davis’ friends and her daughter testified in favor of the verse at a Senate committee hearing Thursday; no one testified against it.

Davis’ friend Connie Munro pleaded with lawmakers to finally make the verse official.

“I don’t have many years left,” she said, after recounting how she encouraged Davis to write the verse decades ago.